Stories like the one being discussed are important, and need to be heard. There could be a compromise solution where everyone ends up happy.
I'm pretty sure Google News and, even though it's not it's main purpose, Facebook are far more popular news aggregators, and even if the latter isn't intended as a news aggregator, both are deliberately more general focus than HN.
For news discussion platforms, Facebook (again) and Reddit are bigger than HN.
HN is distinguished by it's focus.
That doesn't mean I only want to read tech news or things of "intellectual curiosity", it just means that the news sources the two organizations you named draw upon are in the business of publishing garbage. The up/down moderation and flagging of a real aggregate site like HN makes a huge difference in quality of content, when it's used properly. Reddit users abuse it to vote their feelings which defeats the benefits.